Sacred Grasses - 1994

This painting reveals a speed and energy that belies the artists advanced age.

Sensed is the action of grasses being winnowed by the wind to release the seeds that are ground to make seed cakes for ceremonies and everyday sustenance. Scribbly in character, the tangled massing of lines is scrawled over the surface, sometimes almost translucent and at other times thick and textural. These multicoloured marks evoke the spiky angularity of grasses that contrasts with the meandering tendrils seen in the yam series that preceded them. The immediacy of this work, painted in the last year of her life, reveals an artist completely at ease with her materials, and a command of mark-making after having created over 3000 works in only eight years.